Feast of St. Clare

Volcano in the City

Friday today was relatively quiet. No incidents. I guess the heat played a major part in deterring violence in the streets. Unfortunately the heat does not deter work in the libraries. We still trudge on stock checking, cataloging and moving books around. In fact there's a lot more to do now that there are no users in the libraries. No holiday for me.

Well it's midsummer and strange things are happening all over the City. The day before I noticed a weird mound above the Armenian building at the jaffa Street Junction. You can't miss it ... it's enormous. That same evening I saw what it was doing .... smoke and lightening emanating from it ... it was a volcano. I don't think anyone knows why it was built there ... but it's Jerusalem and anything and everything can happen. So we have a volcano spewing smoke all evening while pedestrians and trams pass by beneath.

Expresso and spoon

Things are also weird in Tel Aviv ... well things usually are over there. A couple of the brothers and I had gone out for coffee ... an expresso to be exact ... and we landed up with a teaspoon 5 times longer than the cup. In fact we all had long spoons for a "short" expresso.

I've been to our Jaffa house to work these few weeks. It's not a holiday although the change of atmosphere and city is quite refreshing. Still there's lots of work to be done there due to shortage of personnel in summer. But I also have to reside at the Armenian Mass on Sundays so I'll be oscillating between Jaffa, the Armenian Church and the libraries. Summer holiday? Bah!

Poor Clares in Jerusalem on Feast of
St. Clare

Well it's the Feast of St. Clare today ... no holiday for me though everyone else has gone to the Poor Clare Monastery in Talpiot south of Jerusalem. It must have a big celebration. The italian Poor Clares have replaced the french Colettine Clares who suffered from a severe vocation shortage and could no longer serve the Monastery. The Colettines are reformed while the italian Urbanist Clares (as they are called) are not ... yet the Urbanists are very strict with their poverty and enclosure while the reformed Colettines have gone very relaxed. Strange state of affairs. Well anyway today they're united in their foundress' feast day.